She can take the direct route through the sloping cliffs to the cabin, or stumble through miles of rough wilderness to reach the Strong Bridge, and make it safely to her destination.

She chose the latter.

“I’m nervous about a bear attack,” she said. “I don’t really have a complex shelter yet, so a bear could definitely attack me.”

Bootz, one of many students in Jeanne Fidler’s fifth grade class at Fancher Elementary School in Mt. Pleasant, is writing a daily “survival journal” as a class project for neighboring teacher Brett Fidler.

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Fidler got the idea when he found out the school had a reading theme of “Give it All You’ve Got” tied in with a survival unit.

“I thought, ‘oh, this is great! We can tie writing into the survival unit,’” Fidler said. “There’s some really good reading I do with the kids.”

Fidler said he got the idea from Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire.”

In the story, Fidler said, a man ventures through the frigid Alaskan wilderness on his own, and must build a fire to survive.

However, he said, the assignment he gives his students is a little less risky. They are writing from the safety of home, but with vivid imaginations.

Students are given a map of a heavily wooded Canadian wild, and are told to make their way along a 28-mile route past a swift river current, a bridge and cliffs to get to their safe point.

In their survival journals, “They get dropped off by helicopter, and they have five days to use the map that they have to get to the cabin,” he said.

The students have a list of 10 things they can take, approved by Fidler.

Bootz said she brought a knife, a bow, 10 graphite arrows and a medium-sized tarp for shelter

Callista Hirsch decided to bring a first aid kit, matches, a bow and re-usable arrows.

Aria Wiley brought with her a survival knife with a built-in compass and matches.

Sam Baerren said he chose to bring a 12-gauge shotgun with 10 rounds of ammunition, a machete, a first aid kit, a canteen and water purifier, among other things.

Students can only travel seven miles a day, and at the end of each day, they submit their one-to-two page journals to Fidler.

Fidler writes back, pointing out injuries or problems that have arisen, and complimenting students on their safe choices.

“We try to make it as realistic as possible, like they are actually going to be doing this,” Fidler said. “I teach them the four essentials to survival. Even in today’s world, the No. 1 thing is shelter. Then we have to have water, then the third thing is fire and then the least important thing is food.”

Fidler said in addition to survival, the writing project teaches kids to pay attention to detail.“I tell them, ‘the more detailed you are in your writing, the less chance I can find something you did wrong,’” he said. “Students do perish, yes.”

For example, Fidler said, students will die or get injured if they forget to sanitize their water, forget to wear weather-appropriate clothes or didn’t make their shelter incorrectly.

“Certainly if one of them said they tried to wrestle a grizzly bear, that might do them in completely,” he said. “In survival, we go over about how important it is not to take a risk.”

Bootz said she was excited to learn about wild foods she could eat, and the four students agreed they had learned a lot about detail-oriented writing.

Baerren said he was concerned about a friend’s survival, thinking he would only last two days.

“You have to be very, very, very detailed — or you’re going to die,” he said.

Hirsch agreed.

“I’m learning that if you want to write a story, that you’ve got to use a lot of details to make it really good,” she added.

Randi Shaffer is a reporter at the Morning Sun. She can be reached at 989-779-6059, rshaffer@michigannewspapers.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/randi.shaffer